Artificial or synthetic turf systems are widely used as playing surfaces in indoor and outdoor athletic fields, stadiums, and the like as a replacement for natural grass. Typically, a synthetic turf system includes an artificial turf comprising a texture or array of synthetic fibers are disposed in an upright position extending from an underlying polypropylene mat or base. Curly synthetic fibers may be interspersed between the upright fibers to maintain the upright fibers in an upright position, having the appearance and resiliency of blades of grass. Infill material is added between the synthetic fibers to provide for additional cushioning effect and to protect the attachment of synthetic fibers to the underlying mat or base. Early did not utilize any infill material, while more modern artificial turf utilize a mixture of sand and recycled rubber granules as the infill materials.
Often different sports games and events are held on the same artificial turf playing surface, e.g., the same artificial turf playing surface may be used as a football field for a college football game on Saturday, a soccer field for a college or professional soccer game on Sunday, and a football field for a professional football game the next week. Each game or event may require different field markings, different team names, logos, and athletic conference or professional league symbols or emblems, and the like, to be painted on the artificial turf. Typically, specialty paint used for such artificial field markings is referred to as artificial turf field marking paint.
Between games or events, it may be necessary to remove some or all of the field marking paint from areas of the artificial turf prior to application of new field marking paint for an upcoming game or event. Removal of the field marking paint requires both: a) removal or dislodging the existing field marking paint from the individual synthetic fibers; and 2) extraction of the dislodged field marking paint from the artificial turf.
The time between games or events may be limited and the area of paint marking over the playing surface that must be removed and extracted may be considerable (e.g., field paint may be applied to the entirety of both end zones in a football game). Further, areas of the playing surface where paint needs to be removed and extracted may be short and discontinuous over a large extent of the playing surface, e.g., removal of yard line and hash line markings from a football field. All of the foregoing complicates the field paint removal and extraction process.